


strong heart; delicate fists

by perfectlyrose, sequence_fairy



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Historical, F/M, Fist Fights, Romance, fic tennis
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-16
Updated: 2018-06-10
Packaged: 2019-05-08 00:05:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14682317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perfectlyrose/pseuds/perfectlyrose, https://archiveofourown.org/users/sequence_fairy/pseuds/sequence_fairy
Summary: Lady Rose Tyler, daughter of the Earl of Powell, doesn’t care a whit for the confining rules of Society, no matter how much her mother yearns for her to marry well and be taken care of. Disillusioned by the business of husband-hunting, she longs for adventure and decides to find some for herself.The Honourable John Eliott, lost Viscount of Prydon, returns home from Australia, to reclaim his family's seat. He chafes under the yoke of expectation and finds himself and his fists at the centre of a web of intrigue.When they meet in the dingy back alleys of London, first impressions make poor bedfellows but misunderstandings can't mask the connection between them. Together, they must fight for the life and love they both desire.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is fic tennis between perfectlyrose and sequencefairy - each of us in turn will write ~1000 words. Neither of us knows what the other will write before our turn. Enjoy!

Even on the floor with bruises starting to bloom on his face and blood on his teeth, there was a certain kind of grace about him.  _ Feline _ , Rose thought as she maneuvered for a better view of the action.  _ Powerful _ .

The man bared his bloodied teeth in a smile, in a snarl, and Rose was entranced at the barely leashed violence sparking in his eyes.

He rose up on his elbows and spat blood at the feet of his opponent. The other man ran a hand through his blond hair and stepped closer, scenting victory. He didn’t see the warning signs. The man on the ground hooked his foot around his opponent’s ankle, sending him sprawling. Rose’s heart was in her throat as the one she’d been watching and silently rooting for, the fighter who went by The Doctor, staggered to his feet to loom over the felled blond. He rested his booted foot on the man’s throat and stared down at him, spearing him with an glare cold enough to ice his blood in the middle of July.

“Do you yield?” The Doctor’s voice was low and the accented words rumbled through the room though he didn’t raise his voice.

The downed man nodded.The Doctor removed his foot and stepped back, not sparing another look for his opponent. He seemed to barely register the cheers and turned to head straight for one of the rooms set aside for fighters to clean up. It was clear he was not planning on acknowledging anyone or accepting any accolades but he came to a halt when his eyes caught on Rose. 

The Doctor’s eyes swept her up and down in a brief assessment. She couldn’t move with that icy blue gaze locked on her, with the way it seemed to freeze the very air in her lungs. 

He couldn’t possibly know…

“Come with me,” he growled, wrapping his fingers around her wrist to ensure her compliance. His grip was just tight enough to tell her trying to pull away would be foolish, while also not hurting her.

Rose bit her tongue to keep from arguing as he practically dragged her out of the fight room. As soon as she opened her mouth any successful pretence of being a man  she’d managed to achieve tonight   would be undone.

The Doctor shut the door of the dressing room and turned to face her, arms crossed over his chest. “You know there are several very good reasons women aren’t allowed into these fights.”

“How the hell did you even know?” Rose demanded, crossing her own arms with a scowl. “No one else suspected a thing and you only saw me for a couple seconds.”

He flicked his eyes over her again, lingering on her ill-fitting coat and the breeches that hugged her legs. “Everyone else was apparently blind. I wouldn’t count on that luck continuing.”

His Northern burr seemed to resonate in her chest. It was so different from the clipped accents she was accustomed to hearing and she rather thought she’d like to hear more of it if the actual words weren’t vexing her so thoroughly.

“So, what? You think you’ve rescued me or something?” Rose asked, cheeks pink from his appraisal of her as well as her growing irritation.

“Have done, yeah.” 

“You’re insufferable.”

He quirked his mouth in a quick smile in response and started moving towards the steaming tub of water that was waiting for him in the corner, gait a bit stiff now that he wasn’t in the heat of the fight.

“Are you really going to take a bath with me in here?”

“Yes.”

He faced the basin and stripped off his shirt. Rose was mesmerized by the ripple of the muscles playing along his back until her eyes caught on the large bruise coloring his side.

He turned at her gasp and gave her an amused look. “You just watched the fight, you can’t be surprised I garnered a few bruises.”

“I’m not,” she lied. “I’m simply surprised you’re undressing in front of a woman you haven’t even bothered introducing yourself to.”

“John Smith, at your service,” he said with a small smile. “I’d bow but it would be rather painful.”

“Rose Tyler. I’d curtsey but…” she gestured at her trousers with a smirk.

“There, introductions accomplished. Can I bathe before the water goes cold?”

“Don’t stop on my account.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is fic tennis between perfectlyrose and sequencefairy - each of us in turn will write ~1000 words. Neither of us knows what the other will write before our turn. Enjoy!

John sank into the water, reveling in the soothing heat against his bruises. He groped for the rag and the soap, cuts on his knuckles stinging as he soaped his hands. He could hear Rose behind him, but was determined that he would not look. He made quick work of all the places he could reach, before attempting the reach behind him. Bruised ribs made themselves known, painfully. John’s breath went out of him in a gasp, and he heard Rose still behind him. 

“Ah,” he said, chancing a look over his shoulder. Rose was standing where he’d left her, taking a deep interest in the way his shirt fell across the back of the lone chair. After a moment, she must have felt his eyes on her because she straightened, holding his gaze defiantly. There was steel in her spine to be sure, and suddenly John realised why her name was familiar. 

She was one of  _ those _ Tylers. 

“Oh,” he said, and Rose arched a brow at him. John plunged on, heedless; “Bruised ribs. D’you think– would you mind terribly–” 

Rose saved him the trouble of having to get the words out and stepped forward, hand out for the rag. John handed it to her and leant forward, giving her access to his back. Rose was brisk but careful, and the whole thing was over far too quickly. Her task complete, Rose stepped back, and left him to the rest of his bath. 

John rinsed, checked behind him to make sure her back was turned and stood, snagging his towel and then stepping out of the bath while securing it around his hips. Rose remained, demurely turned away. John shook his head, and set to dressing. When he was, at last, properly attired, he cleared his throat. 

“‘M decent,” he said, and Rose turned. John was once again assailed by the long line of her neck. The deep vee of her shirt collar drew his gaze. 

“Really?” Rose asked, “that’s what you call decent?” John’s eyes snapped back up to her face, shame rising hotly up the back of his neck. Rose smiled, but there was nothing demure about the curve of her lips. 

“Hand me my hat and I’ll walk you out,” John said, stepping forward. 

Rose scoffed. “I don’t think I need a chaperone,” she argued. 

“You think I was the only one who noticed? You think this is the kind of place you want to be found to be patronizing, Lady Tyler?” Rose’s nostrils flared at the formal address. John ignored her affront. “We’ll go out the back and no one will be the wiser. Next time, I might suggest a cravat - your throat is far too delicate to belong to any man.” 

John set his hat upon his head, and then offered Rose his arm by rote, belatedly realising that the ruse would be up for certain then. He let his arm fall, and Rose fell into step next to him. 

They left via a side entrance and once onto the street, Rose tipped her hat to him and then stepped off into the gathering night. London’s ubiquitous fog swallowed her up in no time, and John sighed. This was his penance, he was certain. His punishment for begging off the Season for the past two years since he’d been home. What he wouldn’t give for the endless blue skies and scrubby deserts of Australia right about now. 

John took the long way home, eschewing a cab and turning his collar up against the chilly mist. His mind kept going back to the vision of her face when he’d noticed her in the fight - wide-eyed, lips parted, attention rapt. He was going to see those whiskey-coloured eyes in every waking dream, he was sure. 

John let himself in, his butler having long since retired for the evening and took himself to bed, sinking into the cool sheets and drifting off just as the night began to turn towards the dawn. 

Rose, on the other hand, did not take the long way home. A lady did not linger in this neighbourhood, lest she be mistaken for something she was not. So, she made short work of getting back to the better side of town, and flagged down a cab. 

“Where to, miss?” The driver asked, and Rose asked him to drop her at the plaza nearest to home and settled back against the cushions. The ride was uneventful and Rose tipped the driver handsomely after she stepped out. The fog was less oppressive this far out from the river, but the chill was no less great. Rose rubbed her hands together as she walked, thinking about the spark in a pair of stormy-sea eyes. Oh, she was certain John Smith was more than just John Smith - there was aristocracy in his carriage, even if he knew how to fight dirty. 

Rose shook her head. She had a room to sneak back into, and could not afford to get distracted by the thought of fierce eyes and the long expanse of his back, finely muscled and damp from the steam rising off the water. Rose bit her lip, hard, and climbed over the garden wall.

The manor house was quiet, and Rose tiptoed along the corridor to her room. Her lady’s maid had left the door to her room slightly ajar, and Rose lifted her face in a quiet prayer of thanks for Amy’s foresight. As soon as she crossed the threshold into her sanctuary, all the adrenaline of the night’s adventure fell away and Rose looked longingly at her bed. She undressed swiftly, pausing only when her fingers brushed the base of her throat as she unbuttoned her shirt. A cravat, he’d said, and ‘next time’. Rose sighed, and unpinned her hair, letting it fall. She braided it swiftly and donned her nightgown, before finally, turning down her coverlet and climbing into bed. 


	3. Chapter 3

“Have fun on your jaunt last night?” Amy asked as she worked on pinning Rose’s hair up the next morning. “Can’t believe you wouldn’t let me come with you. Going out in trousers would’ve been a much more exciting use of my night.”

“Henry didn’t entertain you as much as you were expecting?” Rose asked, arching her eyebrow.

Amy snorted. “He tried but he’s about as dense as the metal in his forge and just as incapable of taking a hint.”

“Poor Ames, didn’t even get a kiss, did you?”

The affronted look on Amy’s face said it all and Rose broke into a laugh.

The brash Scottish lady’s maid with her fiery red hair and the temper to match was Rose’s best friend. The two girls were the same age and had grown up together and had been thick as thieves since the moment Amy had burst into the nursery and, in lieu of an introduction, told Rose that she wasn’t impressed that she was a lady and that she would bite her if she didn’t share her toys.

The nursemaid  who had followed quick on Amy’s heels had been appalled. Rose had been delighted and immediately started teaching Amy the names of all her toys. Since then, Amy had transitioned from Rose’s companion and playmate to her lady’s maid and confidante.

“You’re avoiding the question,” Amy said, pushing a pin in with more force than necessary. “Tell me or I won’t divulge where I stashed your outfit from last night.”

Rose sighed, a smile stealing onto her face. “I had a grand time. The fight was as thrilling as I had expected. More even. Oh, the way The Doctor  _ moves _ , Amy. It’s… I don’t know how to describe it to do it justice.”

“Sounds like someone’s a bit infatuated.”

Rose’s mind filled with the image of John’s bare back, of the hard muscles she’d felt through the rough linen she’d washed him with. She bit her lip as heat unfurled in her veins at the memory.

Amy gave her a hard stare, lips pursed. “ _ Looks _ like someone might be a bit more than just infatuated. If I had to guess, I’d say you were walloped with a great big wave of lust.”

“Amy!”

“Am I wrong?”

“No,” Rose muttered, cheeks flaming.

“About time, if you ask me,” Amy declared. “I was starting to think that the bastard who shall not be named scared you off the emotion entirely.”

“Hardly. I just learned to be more cautious.”

“So, tell me more about this Doctor of yours,” she said, not bothering to hide the skepticism on her face as she pinned another section of hair.

“He’s not mine,” Rose protested. She debated with herself for half a second and then spilled the entire tale to Amy, excepting the part where she helped bath him. She wanted to keep that memory to herself.

Amy whistled long and low. “You definitely had a more exciting night than I did. Are you going to go back?”

Rose nodded. “I have to find a cravat before his next fight. Apparently not having one is part of what gave me away.”

“I’ll get you one,” Amy said. She was already scheming, Rose could see it in her eyes. “I could maybe ask around about him, see if anyone knows anything that could help you figure out who he really is.”

“Perhaps I shouldn’t pry,” Rose said.

Amy scoffed. “He lied to you. It’s only natural to pry.”

“Fine. Ask around then.”

“Was going to whether you told me to or not,” Amy said, flashing Rose a grin. She stepped back, finished with Rose’s hair. “Now, off with you. Your mother will be most upset with the both of us if you’re not in the parlour by the time the first callers arrive.”

Rose rolled her eyes and stood. She brushed her hands against her pale pink skirts, banishing whatever wrinkles had tried to set in, and faced her friend. “If anyone starts talking about their eligible sons or nephews, please come intervene before I make a spectacle of myself.”

Amy’s grin grew. “What’s the planned spectacle this time.”

“Only the worst,” Rose answered, schooling her face into a mask of seriousness. “I shall have to tell them that I am not interested in marrying, even if the proposed groom is a duke.”

Amy’s laugh was loud and genuine and Rose couldn’t resist joining in.

“Oh, your mother will have a fit.”

Rose pulled a face and headed for the door, steeling herself for a few hours of insipid conversation and pretending to care about her needlework.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

“I don’t know how he expects to ever be accepted into society if he won’t even accept an invitation anywhere!”

Rose was only half listening to Beverly Landon, the Marchioness of Hertford and her mother’s best friend, as she attacked her needlework with more violence than was probably warranted. The blue thread she was working with was frustratingly similar to the shade of John’s eyes and she was dearly wishing she hadn’t noticed such a thing.

Jacqueline Tyler, the Countess of Powell leaned towards her friend, ignoring her daughter’s butchery of an embroidery hoop. “Has he turned down any of yours, Bev?” 

Bev gave a dramatic sigh. “No. Robert hasn’t decided if we should do him the honor of an invitation as no one seems to be able to vouch for his manners.”

“He  _ is _ a viscount, and a single one. That should count for something,” Jackie said.

“He is still recently returned to England though. Lord only knows what barbaric habits he picked up while in Australia for all those years. Rumor has it he only returned because he received the news that he’d unexpectedly come into the title and wanted to refute the line of succession.”

“Why would he want to prove that he wasn’t a viscount?” Jackie asked, horrified.

“Who are you talking about?” Rose asked, intrigued by the tale of an unwilling aristocrat.

“Rose…” her mother said, a gentle warning in her tone.

Rose reeled in her interest and gave her best polite smile. “I apologize. I was so engrossed with my needlework that I didn’t catch the name of the gentleman you were speaking of and I find myself wondering now.”

Jackie nodded in approval of that little speech. “We are discussing the new Viscount of Prydon. The man seems intent on thumbing his nose at society and not accepting any invitations.”

Rose tilted her head to the side, considering. “Maybe he’s unsure of himself amongst the Ton when he’s been abroad for so long. I wouldn’t want to accept invitations if I was simply going to be stared at and scrutinized like a curiosity while everyone waited for me to make a mistake.”

“He can’t avoid it forever,” Bev argued. “The longer he puts it off, the more curious everyone becomes. He accepted a couple invitations right after arriving in town. Small affairs. Showed his face for a half an hour at most before disappearing. No one has seen him in anything other than passing since then. It’s been months!”

“Perhaps he’s waiting for the right invitation,” Rose said.

“You should send him an invitation to your ball,” Jackie told Bev. “It’s still a fortnight away and that’s plenty of time for him to get his nerve up. Send a note with it that you’d be honored to help ease his way into society by introducing him around. He can hardly turn down an offer from a marchioness!”

Bev’s smile was equal parts excitement and calculation. “I think I just might do that. At the very least, I will be able to tell everyone that I tried to draw out the mysterious viscount. I think I need to arrange to have Robert meet him before I send the invitation. I think I’ll send Robert around to some of the shops he’s known to frequent. Perhaps someone knows what club he belongs to, as well.”

After that decision was made, Bev  finished her tea and stood, determined to set her plan in motion. As Rose got to her feet to help see the marchioness out, the woman winked at her. “Don’t worry my girl, I’ll be sure to introduce him to you. A dance with the mysterious Viscount Prydon will have everyone buzzing around you.”

There was nothing Rose could do but thank her and bid her good afternoon. Maybe this matchmaking attempt would be more palatable than the others. At least she knew this viscount had at least as much care for Society’s rules as she did -- which was to say, very little care indeed.

Who knows, he could be an ally in the making, if only he would go out on a limb and accept the invitation. In the meantime, she and Amy had a cravat to procure and a fight schedule to discover. The viscount accepting an invitation was out of her hands but making “next time” happen and seeing the enigmatic John Smith again was something she would make happen, and soon.


End file.
